Book II, Chapter IX Summary and Analysis

Although the soul finds only misery in the dark night, it must face this darkness. Any sin will impede the process of unification with God. The divine and the natural can not exist in the same person. The soul must be left without natural light for as long as it takes to get rid of the soul's habit of seeing by natural light. The soul must forget all forms of natural love so that it can appreciate divine love. The soul is weak and cannot receive all the blessings of God, so must be cleansed. As the spirit becomes closer to the divine, things once normal seem foreign. For the soul to find true peace, it must go through a night so dark that it will groan and cry out in pain. The harder the...